


then the words came in, and the words sat down

by Nevcolleil



Series: Paint by Numbers [2]
Category: Inception (2010), White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: How did Neal and Arthur decide upon some of the rules that govern how the brothers live their lives?They learned the dangers of living without them. The hard way.





	1. Seven

It isn’t that obvious. Neal doesn’t think it’s that obvious. He’d say it’s maybe… sixty percent obvious as a disaster in the making.

“There’s no way this ends well,” Arthur tries to tell him.

Arthur’d say that it’s more likeninety-five percent … And that that’s his optimistic opinion.

“There’s a forty percent chance that it will,” Neal insists. He insists that Charles is worth it.

He almost punches Arthur in the face, six weeks later, as they speed down the I-90, on their hasty way out of Los Angeles. 

Arthur is struggling to contain his laughter.

“Shut up,” Neal says before Arthur can even start.

“Dude. Neal… He thought you were his dead spook ex-boyfriend.” Arthur lets it all come spilling out - words he’s been holding back for hours, shaky with barely restrained mirth. “This is new, even for you.”

“What’s that supposed to- You know what? Nevermind. Shut up. Just drive.”

“And,” Arthur continues, undeterred. “He’s a spook too!”

“Arthur…”

“Ratner called him ‘Mad Dog‘. Neal, you went to bed with a guy named-”

“Alright! Alright, I get it!” Neal glares. Arthur chuckles. Thick traffic and Neal’s desire to keep living prohibit him from following through with the aforementioned urge to punch faces, but not by much. “You told me so. Are you happy?”

Normally, after a break-up, (even one Neal really should have seen coming) Arthur would be a bit more sympathetic. A bit. He wouldn’t vocalize his amusement, in any case, and if Neal weren’t too busy fleeing for his life to feel really hurt, Arthur would probably be more preoccupied with vengeance than with humor.

But. Well, he did get shot at over this. He had to walk away from a fight with Casey, and Arthur hates walking away from a fight. He hates finding out that the guy he’s gone up against is capable of kicking his ass (it happens so rarely).

And… this is a new level of crazy, even for Neal, who’s lovelife is probably the definition of crazy as defined in Webster’s Dictionary. Neal can admit that, if only to himself.

“My favorite part was when the little bearded guy-”

“I will make you wreck this car, I swear to god.”

Arthur grins. “Seven, Neal. You totally deserved this.”

Rule Number Seven: If your brother thinks it’s a stupid idea, he probably has a point.


	2. Twenty-Two & Twenty-Three

It's Neal's fault that they can't be seen together in Hong Kong for a while (or Neal at all) and Neal owns up to that immediately.

But they're almost all the way back to civilization by the time that Arthur breaks. Neal's tired of the sun. He's tired of sand. He's tired of carrying his coat and shoes but he's not leaving them in the fucking desert (though what he's going to do with them back home, he doesn't know; the blood will never come out of his coat and Italian leather was not meant to trudge through Mexican soil.) Neal is glaring at Arthur whenever he isn't glaring ahead of them, at the salvation that is a cold drink and a hot bath that had better appear in front of them soon.

Neal's just about to say something scathing (and probably unwise) when Arthur throws his hands up and says, "Alright! This is my bad, okay? There, I said it! You can stop giving me the evil eye already. Jesus."

The psuedo-apology kills most of Neal's anger, but words still escape him. "You shouldn't have tried to-"

"I didn't know he was armed-"

Neal scoffs. "Of course he was-"

"-with a grenade launcher," Arthur persists. "And how the hell was I supposed to know that he'd blow up the fucking car?"

"Uh... Maybe because he said, 'Drop the gun or I'll blow up te fucking car'?"

"He could have been bluffing."

"The wheelmen for Mexican drug cartels don't bluff," Neal says with certainty. "You know this. I know this. You know how I know this, Arthur? Because everytime I get a call from you and you're in Mexico, there's a drug cartel. Or a slave trader. Or a corrupt despot-"

"One time that happened, Neal. And I asked you to never bring up that extraction again."

Neal's lips twitch. Despite the heat and his exhaustion, he can still find humor in that memory. It was worth not punching Cobb in the face for getting Arthur into trouble to see Arthur in that oaxacan dress. "Why can't you ever call me from Cancun, huh?" Neal asks, playfully whining, letting their talk turn lighthearted.

Arthur's a little slow to cool down, compared to Neal (nevermind that nothing really "cools" out here in the 104 degree weather). It's not just a sunburn pinking his skin, Neal knows. No matter how many times he has to help pull Neal's ass out of a fire, he's always embarassed when it's his turn to need help.

"Cancun is a tourist attraction," Arthur says. "Not a lot of demand for illicit dreamshare from the tourists in a tropical paradise."

"We need a new rule," Neal decides.

As much as he loves his brother and will always come with Arthur calls (it's the fifth most important rule between them) he'd like it if he could do that without suffering any more explosions in the middle of a hot desert and the trek by foot that always seems to follow.

It's Arthur's turn to snort. "What? Always check for a grenade launcher? We've already got Rule Number Nine. I know it was stupid, I-"

"No," Neal stops him. "Something better." And he comes up with:

Rule Number 22: Keep your brother away from Tijuana, Mexico.

Arthur counters with:

Rule Number 23: Hong Kong, Rio, and Tangiers also (at least until the heat dies down.)

Neal totally denies having anything to do with that mess in Africa, but they're in a hotel room, clean and air conditioned, by that time, so Arthur doesn't argue.


	3. Twelve - Fourteen

There isn't a lot of crossover in their lines of work. That's what Arthur's reports always say. That's even what Arthur occasionally pretends to believe because surely - Surely - Arthur's brother knows better than to try and con the United States military.

"I can't believe you would-"

"I'm here for you, Arthur," Neal says calmly, in the face of Arthur's panic.

"To what? Give me a fucking heart attack? Neal, this isn't a goddamned game. You can't count cards to-"

"Oh, I resent the implication of that. There's more to what I do than-"

"Nothing you do should be done to an Afghani warlord in the middle of an arms negotiation!" Arthur all but shouts. He's trying to protect his cover, protect his brother, and maintain his sanity all at once. He's beginning to buckle under the strain.

"Oh? And what are you going to do, Arthur? Find the missile codes and just take off with them? You won't make it off the compound!"

Arthur's rather good at getting in and out of enemy compounds. Which Neal should know by now, but Neal's track record for accepting the way Arthur does things (over the way Neal would do them) isn't great. Arthur doesn't bother continuing to fight. He just waits for Neal to finsh ranting and confess the real reason for his being this far out in the Middle East.

'I owe a guy who owes a guy' Arthur's ass.

"Dealing with Middle Eastern shieks requires finesse, Arthur. Of which you have very little-"

"Oh, shut the hell up." Arthur has plenty of finesse. And he'll prove it. It'll even be sorta fun to not have to shoot his way out of the country.

Thirteen:

Arthur's been in a lot of prisons. Afghani prisons are the worst.

They're so bad he doesn't make Neal say 'I told you so' before he apologizes and gets to work on shooting their way out of the country.

But he'll get back at Neal for all the bitching he does, even if it takes Arthur months.

(And it does. Two to be exact - Neal makes another crack about Arthur's lack of finesse and Arthur challenges Neal to finesse his way out of a bar brawl with a handful of Italian gangsters in Venice.)  
(Then Arthur ends up knocking out one guy's tooth and breaking three of another guy's fingers, because - challenge or not - nobody lays a hand on his twin brother, even if Neal and his mouth sometimes sorta deserve it.)

Fourteen:

Things get too hairy in Detroit, another six months later, to waste any time on argument. Neal will grab the antique pistol (even though the General will chew Arthur's ass when Neal eventually fences it. Arthur's supposed to be retrieving it and a bunch of other artifacts somebody stole out of a military archive) and Arthur will take out the guards who know now that they're here and what they look like. 

Rule Number Fourteen: Everybody has a certain skill set. Stop bitching and let your brother do his job.


End file.
